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Apartments for Techies?
thedistance asks:
"I'm wondering if anyone has heard of companies retro fitting any
of the failed telecom hotels for apartment use? It sure would be nice
to find an apartment complex that was designed just for the tech
croud with a fiber/cat5 infrastructure throughout. It sure would make
it a lot easier to setup highspeed internet access, video on demand,
and wlans... not to mention an easy way to borrow the spare NIC from
your neighbor... (we can just leave the sugar borrowing to the rest
of the non-techie world)" If you know of an apartment complex
offering high bandwidth, please post a comment, below. Aside from
bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal
for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
I saw a few in Atlanta a few months back.
My life is either one big analogy, or one big wine stain. I can't tell these days ~Amber one night in a bar.
Such an apartment would be really nice indeed ... any offers?
Life sucks.
Campus Housing.
what's wrong with the broom closet of the nearest ISP? i bet they'll let you stay there free if you promise to mop the floors, too.
A sorority full of tech-worshipping nymphomaniacs living next door...
...maybe not so realistic, but a good idea none the less.
Who did what now?
WaldenWeb has a few apartment complexes in the Houston area; they run an OC-3 from an ISP to their NOC, and run OC-3 from their NOC to each of their apartments. My apartment has 3 RJ-45 drops (only one of which I can make active at a time, but that's what a hub is for). Rent is reasonable, Internet access runs about $50/month.
Having an apartment complex like this would be a social disaster. There would be people who would never leave their apartments, spending hours and hours surfing the web, playing Everquest, and posting continuously in online news forums...
Wait, never mind.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
A beer keg storage room ? a Pizza Hut outlet downstairs ?
that'd be perfect for LAN parties :-D
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
Ok thats cool, but their would be loads of restrictions and all that crap. i mean for christ sake, most UK university admins get jumpy when you downnload mp3s theses days......
A friend of mine who just moved to Virginia, is planning on doing just that. He going to purchase an apartment complex (his family has lots of money) and outfit it to be geek friendly. He's planning on running gigabit ethernet to every apt for apt-to-apt networking and use highspeed ADSL with several static IPs (one for each apt) for outbound internet access. Then start playing with video-on-demand and other cool technologies on his apt complex as a testbed for others. Once he gets it right he'll start outfitting other apartment complexes for other realtors. Of course he'll be using Linux and FreeBSD for just about everything from the router to the "apt game servers" and video on demand servers.
Of course the bandwidth takes top priority, but on top of that I think you'd want these few things:
- Backup Generator for the entire building, and on top of the backup generator brand new electrical wiring, and lots of outlets would be nice too.
- This is sort of given with the broadband, but lots of extra phone lines, just for general obviousness.
- I know not much of these techie apartments but I can guess the rooms are not much different from regular hotel rooms, so I can say I'd want some large spacial renovations done on the place, but I could be very wrong.
Not that I know anything at all. Some thoughts none the less.
E-paper, e-paper, e-paper and e-paper! On the walls! On the ceiling!
Imagine reading /. on the ceiling while falling asleep, instead of at work! Now *that's* productivity!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
There are many Apartments in the area that have highspeed access, and are all linked up on a LAN. I think the company providing the access is called Tsunami, and for the life of me I can't remember the names of complexes.
I'm sure there are countless amongst us who would gladly pay through the teeth for lots and lots of dedicated bandwith. If you have a building where every tenant is going to use it, you can really cut your costs, not to mention that these buildings already have the infrastructure in place, so it's only a matter of flipping the switch. So what would the per-user bandwith costs come out to if you were just plugging an entire building into, say, a T-3, based on how much bandwith you would want to dedicate to each apartment.
Also, how difficult would it be to set up QOS for each apartment, so that one guy couldn't hog it all and piss everyone else off? This is much more important for home users than for businesses.
Synergy is your friend
Gävle Sweden got a pretty nice infrastructure.
:-)
:-)
100MBit switched net in most of the apartmentbuildings and Gigabit backbone.
The city wide NAT is highpreformance and really nice.
The Uplink to the net is 2x 135MBit which is enough for most needs. The NAT-community offers serveral FTP:s that contains what you need (and don't need). A fresh Linux ISO in 10 min is nice enough for me
When I lived there I used to watch movies from my friends harddrive without problems
Anything that is as techie friendly as you describe isn't going to be setup for individual billing. There wouldn't be any separate meters for utilities, so how would you know what to pay for gas/water/electricity? I sure wouldn't want to pay for the juice to power my neighbor's huge racks of drive arrays.
Also, anything that was a former hotel or business complex would be zoned commercial, thus not allowed for apartment rent/lease, right?
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I can't resist to once more point out that we are accessing the Internet per 100 Mbps full duplex fibre link to our home.
I have a very detailed description on this page on how we installed a very high-tech network in our entire block.
The page have been slashdotted once before, so the visitor counter have passed 52 000!
Best regards, Tomas
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
When I studied I payed app. $200/month including Internet access.
Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
More bandwidth!
What were the skies like when you were young?
Washer/Dryer on each floor with sandbox security on each appliance so your neighbor's kid cant throw dye in your wash. Until that, you can count me out. ;)
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I've always wanted to get an OC192... of Jolt! lets pass an electric current through that nectar and still be able to tap the pipe for the precious stuff ;P
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
They aren't apartments, but the domain lofts are completly wired with high speed Internet access, it's a gig drop to the building distributed by 10/100 Ethernet. There is another building going up right next to this one, but I don't remember it's name, with similar stats. The catch: one of the condos has a $300,000 price tag.
My video gets the shakes when the neighbor's AC fan is turned-on on the other side of the wall.
Don't be ashamed; that happens to a lot of folks, especially geeks who've been getting free broadband through their educational institution for four (six, ten..) years, and are somewhat scared of a world where they've heard that some folk still use dialup.
Your idea has merit, though... if it were me, I'd model it as a 'halfway house' for recent grads who aren't quite 'equipped' to make it 'out there' just yet. It would be somewhat similar to a YMCA, except without the fitness opportunities. You could call it the 'Y' Adapter, and you'd probably fill up all your cells in no time.
Amenities could include communal laundries, in-house cafeteria, and a 30-terabyte KaZaa! mirror in the basement. You could offer regular field trips to local social establishments and real apartment communities, as well as social counseling and maybe dance classes.
Oh, and after you've been there a month, you lose network connectivity between 4 and 6 AM. After two months, no connection between 2 and 6 AM. You lose one more hour per month until after 6 months, you can't get on the 'net after dark. This would offer an excellent incentive for finding your own place, negotiating your own broadband connection, and starting a real life on your own.
nothing has changed here since 97
/ /s lashdot.org/
http://web.archive.org/web/19971221012817/http:
I'm not sure why, but many apartment complexes near college campuses have high speed internet connections in each apartment. It's worth a look. Besides checking local apartment listings, see if a university nearby has a guide to apartments nearby. Virginia Tech, for instance, has a database that includes things like internet connection, LAN, etc.
A huge apartment building down-town San Francisco. It's not in the best neighborhood, but it became popular being so close to the business district... But a techie paradise! Expect to pay through the nose, though.
In Philadelphia, PA, in West Philly at 43rd and Locust, there's the Fairfax. The best part of it is that they have the building networked for high speed connectivity, for $30/month (when I was there, around a year and a half ago). They didn't have any technical info on what kind of connection it was for me or anything, but I would get speeds of around 120k/sec fairly regularly. Other than the internet connection, though, the apartment was a real piece of crap... my sink and toilet would regularly create small black fountains in them, someone tried crawling in my window one night to rob the place while I was sleeping there, and the maintenance man was kind of a jerk.
If you're willing to put up with the bullshit though, you can get an efficiency place there pretty cheaply ($550/month) and have a pretty good connection without having to live in dorms. When I was there, cable modem and DSL weren't available widely yet, so it was about the best access you could expect and for a pretty affordable price.
Oh, and, uh, don't use me for a reference, I ended up getting kicked out because of a rather schizophrenic pets policy that I don't really want to get into explaining. Just don't move there if you have pets, regardless of them saying it's okay. It isn't. They'll tell you in person it's okay, and let you in, but if they ever decide they don't like you, since it's technically against the lease they'll use it against you.
Well, they'll need to do *something* with all the laid-off techies, since they won't be working anything other than McJobs...any economic stimulus package that might have helped has been trashed by Daschle and his Nazi cohorts. Here in Colorado, the Denver Post ran a story about former techies driving TRUCKS, for Pete's sake. *WHY* do we need H1-B's, again? Not that they were every really needed even in the late-90's....
I notice Daschle doesn't have anything to worry about, since he makes 175K - I think congressmens' paychecks should be tied to the economy - we all have to tighten our belts, why don't they? Nah, they'll play politics to dick over EVERYONE, and then they run off to their nice vacation with their great big, taxpayer-paid paychecks, not to mention other perks that fall outside of a salary.
Anyway, it'd beat living out of your car or the local Y. There were already horror stories like that last spring, why we are still importing workers (H1-B's) and doing no tax cuts is a real mystery. Hopefully, all you voters remember to speak out about this crap...H1-B's should be on a ballot for the PEOPLE to vote for in a state-by-state basis, not some representatives to decide to do what never would be chosen by the people. I mean, who would vote to have more foreigners (and I'm not talking about immigrants here, I'm talking about the new class of indentured servants that the H1-B creates) taking jobs that hardly exist in the first place, and who the hell would NOT vote for lower taxes!!!
Maybe in one of these buildings we'll soon see bandwidth counters, to tax bandwidth like water or eletricity.
Rents are expensive though - around $1500 for a one bedroom.
I lived in an apartment complex in Phoenix, AZ that had apartments wired with 100Mb ethernet. They charged everyone that used it $30 a month for 1 IP and another $10 for every IP after that. It was a really good deal and they didn't restrict bandwidth amounts. The only rule was you couldn't run servers, at least not on ports 21 or 80. All in all it was a really good idea and I only had downtime for about 10 minutes in over a year.
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Pla
A group of apartments that targets techies
Actually, There is a hot trend in college dorm, and campus living with 100mbit cat V throughout, They are just now starting to do apartments. I would look to see more of this coming forward as colleges become more and more wired. If you dont mind living near a college (where the target tenants are students) Im sure you could find a place like this.
-enigmabomb-
Some people tell me I am sleeping my life away, I simply tell them I am living my dreams.
Now if only Cox or Comcast could do what you've done, we just might have something!
Harbor Steps in Seattle has to be one of the best wired apartment complexes in the country. This is also one of Blockbuster's test sites for video on demand over IP. I'm pretty sure each apartment comes with cat 5 with 100baseT to a switched network on multiple OC-3's. Not to mention the fact that they are next to the Pike Street Market and over looks Eliot Bay.
He's planning on running gigabit ethernet to every apt for apt-to-apt networking and use highspeed ADSL with several static IPs (one for each apt) for outbound internet access. [...] Of course he'll be using Linux and FreeBSD for just about everything from the router to the "apt game servers" and video on demand servers.
It sounds like either your friend doesn't have a good handle on the technologies involved with this, or there was some miscommunication between the two of you.
It sounded good up until "use Linux and FreeBSD for the router".
You need something better than a PC to route many apartments' worth of gigabit ethernet to each other. A PC doesn't have the internal bandwidth for more than one gigabit connection. If you're using an off-the-shelf gigabit ethernet hub or router, it'll be running its own embedded OS from the vendor (if it's complex enough to run anything at all). If you're using a souped-up non-PC workstation as the router... you're spending far more than you have to for a simple router.
In a similar vein, you'll have an interesting time getting enough static IPs for a medium-sized apartment building without a fight. Maybe when IP6 finally takes over.
This sounds like a really cool project, and your friend deserves praise for trying to pull it off, but he'd better take a close look at the tools he's planning to use for it, and make sure that he's using the right tools for the right parts of it.
Everyone knows geeks live in their parents basements
Network connectivity is nice, but the basics need work: Power protection & monitoring, environmental management, etc. You need to include a UPS with backup power generation, air conditioning, & facilities for monitoring.
Build a computer room so that tenants can have so many RU's of space in a cool clean powered room with security. A relay closure interface so that your gear can handle blackouts cleanly. Stick your servers there and X/VNC/whatever from your apartment.
In the past week or two, we've had questions about
a. Building a house for networking from the ground up (if cat6 isn't enough for your damn HOUSE then you have problems)
b. Putting a server room in your house (hint: walk-in closet. If you have enough hardware to cause heat problems, you are beyond help.)
c. Living in a fucking HOTEL, because there's a network drop in your room?
Gimme a break! Think about living in a hotel for a second. It's ONE ROOM, first of all. No kitchen. No living room. No den, no dining room, and I'm pretty sure there's NO FUCKING SERVER ROOM. Do you want to live in a hotel room?
So what does that date think when you ask her to come over to your place for dinner, and bring her to a hotel? Are you gonna break out the foreman grill and cook up some burgers for her? Just cut straight to the streaming porn, over that 'LEET "data port" conveniently located in your PHONE. Folks there are reasons that most people don't live in hotels.
Ugh, the last thing that I want to do is live around a bunch of nerds.. isn't it bad enough that I have to work with them and go to school with them?
in New Yorks east village. If you don't mind paying several million dollars for a condo you can have access to the buildings OC3. Great location too, if your willing to shell out the ridiculous amount of money for manhattan real estate.
I'm tired of bombing the universe
Roadrunner makes a respectable internet connection for my apartment (i got lucky in living in an unsaturated area) but the one thing thats lacking is good power lines. I have only one circuit for my living room / computer room, and i cant turn the tv on without a brownout (so nicely declared by my 2 UPSs beeping at me). What i want is 40A circuits, or more than one circuit per room, to keep all my equipment well fed.
you are going to be working 14 hours a day anyway. An apartment is part of the real world...
I should have listen my mother and become a doctor
Isn't it sad when people can't grow up and move out of the dorm or mom and dad's extra bedroom upstairs? You've certainly hit the nail on the head with this one, my friend.
My neighbour lives in a high-tech house already. Oh, it's not that fancy being built 50 years ago with its original kitchy furnitures. From outside, it looks like it's falling apart as no one has been maintaining it. Last month, his toilets broke and I found out that they are not flushing anymore last time I visited him. Recently, his kitchen has been invaded by cockroaches because the dishwasher needs to be fixed. His lawn has grass about 5 feet high. Newspapers and junk mail are building up a barricade outside since he doesn't even bother fetching them anymore. Sometimes I bring him some food, but the rest of thet time he gets pizza delivered. However, the one thing he is proud about is that he's got a top notch DSL connection that I am sure bits everyone else online experience in the street. He is able to play online games as no one else can really do around here. Nothing else seems to matter to him. He looks so happy facing his screen all the time.
PPA. the girl next door
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
I recently graduated from the Uni. of KY and am now moving to Irvine, CA (beach, desert, mountains, tech companies, girls in bikini's, etc.). apartmentguide.com has an option you can set to help search for apartments that have highspeed internet (which is something I had to have.) Of course whether its any count, who knows. The service I will be getting is Cox@home, soon to be Cox@cox.
Honestly, nothing beats the setup I've got at my school residence (off-campus, not university funded). We've got a 4-story apartment building, each floor w/ 5 rooms, those 5 tenants sharing a common kitchen/laundry room/etc. on the floor. The place was wired with cat5 cables running into every room (through the walls, no cables running across the floors everywhere) and there's a patch panel in every laundry room providing links to all the rooms/floors... this much was provided by the landlord.
:).
Then we added a couple hubs, a cable modem per floor, linked it all up... makes for some great LAN action. The guys upstairs even got an 802.11b to extend our little network across the street
You want extra amenities? Try 2 large fridges and a freezer on each floor for beer, and a pizza place and chineese food place across the street, open until (at least) 4am.
Yup, it's paradise folks. Rent's pretty good too.
A place like that could be the home of the world's greatest LAN party. Especially if it had a convention center on it... :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Why don't you just rent a 5 bedroom house with your friends, set up a cable modem or DSL connection, and then wire up the house? That's what I did to our 5 bedroom house that we're renting. We have a fast cable modem hookup for $75/month, so it costs $15/person per month. Every room is wired with a high speed category-5 cable, connected to a fast ethernet (100 MBps) switch, and in addition, we have wireless network access too, so you can bring your laptop outside into the garden or the the roof, surf the net and drink your morning coffee.
You DO realize, there's a difference in all 3.
One is looking for a hotel/isp. A hotel may not necessarily BE an ISP. He's looking for a combination package. Not necessarily a studio like you badly imply.
Wiring your house is a VERY different project. Discussion involved the type of wiring to buy, which is VERY different than finding an internet appt building. Your house doesn't necessarily mean you'll be an ISP.
Building a server room is a bit of a task. All the user was looking for is cheap rack equpitment.
If you can't deal with the ask slashdot's, how about turning them off, eh?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
As I understand it, OC-3 refers to 155MegaBit ATM links. I admin 2 here at work. The website link talks about 45 Megabit connections, which refers to a size usually assoiciated with T3 links, which cost much less. Now that is HONKING FAST for a home connection, and for $50 per month makes it pretty interesting.
Unfortunately, the network design presented has everything going out to the Internet using a 45 Megabit link. So 200 apartment users all trying to download MP3s at the same time would have a theoretical bandwidth of 230 Kbits/sec, or roughly the same as DSL. Now, if you wanted to download your neighbors MP3 collection, you could do some serious data moving.
What sort of firewall do they provide, or are they the targets of the next DDOS kiddies?
http://www.tower801.com
Features at Tower @ 801
View balconies outside every livingroom and bedroom
Outdoor deck with pool
24 hour fitness room with separate saunas
Club room with DVD home theater system and large laundry room
Cafe Lado open from 5:30 am to 11:00 pm
Laundry facilities
High speed Internet access
Digital cable
Secured underground parking
Storage facilities
Small pets allowed (larger pets upon approval)
Concierge Services
Onsite dry-cleaning pick up and drop off
Package acceptance/delivery
Fax/copy service
Concert and Broadway ticket packages
Restaurant packages
Dog walking
I believe they also have a video library you can check stuff out of. AND, if you're got good enough line-of-sight, you can easily snipe major bandwidth from all the wide-open 802.11 networks downtown! Mwuahahah!
Those places can have the foulest BO stench you can imagine.
I'll tell you something else. There comes a time in a man's life when his space and the people who chooses to share company with start to matter in different ways. A better idea, I think, or at least a safer idea would be to encourage geeks to all buy houses in the same community and set up a wireless network or something. I still can think of better things to do with my time but atleast you'll have your own building and space.
To ween you off the slow connections, they'd hook you up with an even better setup, and take care of some of your basic needs.
God spoke to me
Most of the 'high tech' hotels did not go out of business, they just lost their high-speed internet access, or dropped it because it was not adding to their bottom line in a time of hard business conditions. (Remember: hotels existed for years without high-speed internet and will continue to exist without it in the future.)
Bottom line as it regards your question: Those hotels are still hotels with RJ45 (or whatever) connections in their rooms that don't go anywhere particularly useful.
I own a company that is doing just this in the Salt Lake City area. I have done a couple cat5 installs, and some wireless lan installs, (not quite a neat as cat5 cause its slower, but some of these buildings just don't take cat5 (being 60+ years old, plaster walls instead of wallboard). If any of you live in Salt Lake and want your Apt done up, tell your landlord to give me a call, paveraware inc. is the company name.
As a student at McMaster (Canada) there's a tonne of houses around the University that are 'swiss cheesed' with wires running here and their through walls, taped to walls (God bless duct tape) baseboards or anything else you can think of.
To break away from university life - but who would want to - you are going to have to move into a new complex. Who can afford a new home though, not this poor student?
The cheapest and most efficent way I'm sure is to get a dedicated line, T3 perhaps and share the bandwidth with other neighbours in the area (5, 10 people should bring the bill down). Check contracts for that though, some providers don't like you networking too many computers because you turn into an ISP. Don't get your connection though them if that's the case.
Competition is great.
Cheers.
Yeah, feeding the trolls.. Maybe you're right. I guess I've been on slashdot so long I'm just descending into troll zone out of boredom.
Along the Jersey City waterfront, in a development called Newport, the 5 newest high-rise apartment buildings are wired for ethernet. The network connects to the 'net by at least one T3. I regularly see 300KB/s. It costs 49.95/mo for one static IP.
I lived in the first site they brought online - I never saw speeds over T1. I've been told that they've corrected that problem though. The owner doesn't strike me as the type to "share the wealth" by lowering the rates - they increased rent 30-60% after the Inet access came online which is one of the reasons I left.
Where do they give inmates Internet access? Certainly not around here.
Hey this sounds just like my old office at Microsoft. Nice stereo system, privacy, free sodas and food in the fridge down the hall, lots of bandwidth, 6 brand new computers and a sofa to sleep on when I needed to crash.
-- Social life? Who needs a social life when you have computers.
there is cambridgeside near kendall square in cambridge - they are pretty damn expensive (last I looked was a year or two ago and they were $1600 for a 1 bedroom) and they have like 8 billion phone lines per apt, lots of outlets, and a T1 in every room...
I'm plenty happy in my place with cable modem - but I only have one outlet and the place is old so the power sucks...
I'm out in Somerville (slummerville)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I live @ in Philly at an apartment building called The Left Bank. Right now, i get synchronous 640k wireless ethernet w/ 802.11b (11mpbs to the access points, of course), for $50 / mo. The building was originally going to wire all the apartments w/ ethernet, but they switched when the realized a wireless infrastructure would be much cheaper. One thing that bugs me no end is that they don't use WEP at all, although they restrict access to the network to known MAC addresses. Anyway, i'm pretty happy w/ it. I wish the downstream were a bit faster, but i challenge you to find an ISP that has 640k upstream for so cheap.
Apartments with high-speed are nice, but you need a consierge or something. The really high tech apartments around here in seattle have a guy you can call for stuff. Food, Movies, Car wash...
Everyone at work used Kozmo till they went out of business. Was a shame, they sure had alot of business...
Of course the apartments that come with a consierge are 3x the price of a normal apartment. Doable if your 3 guys all working at startups. (-;
I live in one in milwaukee, The Historic Fifth ward loft apartments in milwaukee. The only bad thing is they give internal ips. So i kept to road runner instead.
The Internet is a scam.
Excite, AT&T, Cox, Comcast, Verizon;
ADSL, Cable, wireless, G3;
Microsoft, Apple, Sun, IBM, VA;
800MHZ, 900MHZ, 1.4GHZ, 1600MP, 1800XP;
Win95, Win98, WinME, Win2K, WinXP, OSX;
scam.scam.scam.scam.scam. Getting it in the rear end, all of us.
If it's not a scam, then how come people still need to be told not to open bloody attachments?
How come we are all paying for the worst support and service of any industry? Software, hardware, service; it all *sucks*. If this was cars or toys, there would be bodies filling the streets.
Jobs are scarce, the industry is in a meltdown, by this time next year the only remaining players will be Yahoo, AOL, MS, and the RIAA cartel. What will be left is a litter of shitty Geocities pages and e-commerce brochures for companies that are not in your city. Yay.
Forget about finding an apt in an ex-dotbomb building. Friggin pipe dream. Do you realise the amount of retro-fitting a contractor would have to do to turn all those cubicle farms into bathrooms and kitchens?
The Internet is a scam. You have all been duped. It was a wild ride, now it's just cable television.
Already moderated, posting anon.
I don't want Cat5e or anything else that will be outdated *eventually*...
I want conduit.
I've been running the stuff in my house as I remodel rooms. This way I can pull anything wire-like in the future whereever I want it.
Conduit.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Issaquah Highlands has fiber run throughout the entire neighborhood. There are apartments, condo's, townhomes and houses in that neighborhood. Used to live there...pretty much kicks ass.
Silly Rabbit...Sig's are for kids.
With wireless becoming cheaper and more effective, all geeks in an apartment complex will "find" each other anyway.
I don't see the point of putting in special cables for computer networking. Between phonline networking, powerline networking, wireless networking, and 100Mbps optical networking, I can get pretty much all the connectivity I want. High-speed internet access comes in through cable, DSL, or fixed wireless in most places without any special "techie" allowances. Computers have gotten small and powerful enough that I don't need a separate room or closet anymore either. If you want to get equipment at night, move to a civilized area where electronics stores are open when you may need something.
I had a consultant that lived in an apartment complex that had a T1 for all the tenants. They just split the cost. I never got around to find the specifics, only that the tenants were much happier than the DSL lines they had before.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
100Mb ethernet. A subnet scheme that would allow me to have 2 IP's (maybe private addresses, you can always host your stuff somewhere else) at the very least. A decent power line, stabilized, backed up by a no-break (not for everything, just for the computers). Lots of conduit. Particularly one running straight to a big flat roof, just in case. But most important, the complex should be laid out like one geek buikding for each two ordinary ones, or else it would be a social aberration. And preferrably close to somewher one could walk to so as to relax, be it a mall or a park.
Isn't this what we're supposed to use apt-get for?
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Oh, and they pay all the friggin' utilities, too! Life is good.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
Here on the Eastside of Seattle there are scads of wired apartments. Ironically, there's also a surplus of technology businesses. But you probably are only interested in an apartment near to (insert backwater Walmart town here). Gee, sorry I couldn't help.
BTW, I'm looking for a great pizza place. Anywhere in America's fine with me. TIA.
but Comcast wired my complex with fiber to each building, they offer telephony, cable and cablemodem to each apartment. The telco service is cool enough, it has all the same features as the Bell(verizon), it's a few bucks less and i've never had any problems with it.(knock on wood)
The real depressing thing is that 90% of this community is retired, (not that retired people can;t use bandwidth) but there aren't many teenagers or young couples. I doubt that their utilization in this complex has really inspired them to do this in other neighborhoods. On the upside i'm the only one on my pipe in my building. *grins*
Partly, I'd assume, these features help people feel comfortable leaving their dorm rooms. But also, these features are expensive to setup for only a semester or two, so the management sets them up in bulk (i.e. cheaper) and uses it as a marketing tool.
The general setup is an Ethernet drop in every room, along with cable, phone, and panic alarms.
While some of these apartments are strictly local to Purdue, some companies are even doing this similar community complex idea at several campuses across the country.
Hey,
I am not sure where you live, but in Vancouver, almost all condo developers have been building their buildings with the "techies" in mind since around 1997 (when i started looking for a condo). Most are providing some sort of high-speed internet access (cat-5 to your unit, with a fiber drop to the building sort of thing) and some are even offering cable TV using this infrastructure, among other things.
-farshad
...and remember in your brain boggle, wrong starts with a wubble-u.
The last thing that we need is to waste money on bush's backassward plans. Personally, I am happy the democrat and republicans canceled each others plans. We wasted money on the airlines. We offered grants and Loans. They all took the free money, but none have taken the low loans. How useful was the free money? Not one bit. They all applied to their bottom line, which is all that Bush's plan would do. Had Bush and croonies really wanted to help, they would have offered up the money, but it would have been done as subsudies on the passenger fare. By paying for 3/4 of the ticket (roundtrips for $50), the airlines would have had full flights and the hotels/cars would be used. Instead we wasted BILLIONS.
Don't know what your problem is here in denver. There are plenty of jobs for here for those that are capable. You just need to learn how to work and be in the right spot. Perhaps, you don't agree with the Salary? then compremise.
....
;)
if you ask what besides HighSpeed would be useful: Power Outlets... Right now the "office" that is part of my apartment comes with 2 power outlets. Not enough by far and yes, that's a NEW building (less than 2 years old).
Apparantly they recently put a wire of Internet Access in, it's normal CAT5 but when I opened the outlet the other day it looked more like it's just another Telephone Jack.....
Oh well.
Power to the Servers!
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Many (about 30) condo and apartment buildings in the downtown/midtown metro Atlanta area have Internet access from Biltmore Communications:
http://www.biltmorecommunications.com/
In my condo building, they have hubs/switches in the mechanical room on each floor and run cat5 to each unit. The buildings are interconnected via a wireless network.
Wire their Condo's so they've instant access to their doctors' office, so their whole unit can be wired for the Nurses station somewhere in the condo complex, so they can continue to program and be socially connected. Those of them who own houses outside of the complex will then see the value in upgrading their homes so ya'll can get your PHD's off campus in a great old, sdsl connected place.
What do you mean old ladies don't program?!
Here in LA, just about every average to high end apartment has free high speed access.
Anyway, he has an unusual approach to running his business. He doesn't rent out whole apartments or houses. Instead, you rent a bedroom and you agree to help take care of any common areas. The whole business evolved out of the hippie commune the landlord himself lived in back in ancient times.
Anyway, one of the perks of renting from this guy is free DSL service. Which turns out to be his main way of keeping his tenants in line. Fall behind on the vacumming, or allow the kitchen to get too toxic, and the DSL goes away until things improve. Now that is social engineering!
Well that'd meen my jack assed apt manager would need to offer something other than carpetting and dishwashers as "amaneties", and offer something other than bas aberyth for 3k a month.
On a side note think it'd be possible to force some legisation through so that dishwashers don't count as amanaties but are nescesities?
- High Speed Internet (1.5 - 10Mb+)
- Building Area Network (100Base Switched)
- Server Room (Racks, UPS, Cooling)
- Exercise room and equipment
- Common Room (Big HDTV, THX Sound system, etc.)
- Game Room (Pool table, Fussball, etc.)
- Outdoor Party Area (Pool, Bar-B-Que, etc)
- ???
Any sgguestions?I live in one (The Enclave, San Jose -- http://www.theenclave.com). CAT5 drops to every room, RJ45 in every wallplate. Two 3Com CoreBuilders and a Cisco 7500 as the gateway to an AT&T fiber drop from their backbone. Only problem is, it's expensive ($2000-$2500/mo. for a 1000 sq. ft. 2-bedroom), and the net feed is currently through ATTBI, even though there aren't any cable modems in use here.
.@.
If you want to live in Toronto, check out www.cityplace.ca. The most technologically advanced condos in the Greater Toronto Area I believe
I was browsing thru rent.net about a year ago and I saw a small building with Condos in it in the Denver area that had 2 T1 lines going into it with ethernet connections and the building had it's own website(for newsletters,...etc) but it was geared more for upscale clientale than techies. Guess I can dream....
A couple years ago a complex off the Lawrence Expressway and 101 in Sunnyvale, CA (San Jose area) was supposed to have T1 access in each apartment. Last thing I heard there was T1, but the main feed was insufficient as many tenants decided to put up servers and maxed it out. An upgrade was supposed to be forthcoming, but I haven't checkin on it lately. Complex name was Tuscan or Tuscany something. ~2400/mo, IIRC
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Late night quake sessions? That new Squarepusher 12" dying to be played at 4 AM? Cut the midrange, drop the bass?
Any good geek hovel must have good soundproofing. Even if you aren't the type to play loud music all the time, common everyday sounds can get annoying (particularly if people are keeping erratic schedules, as many of us like to do). Soundproofing is a must.
Give it up, we know you're posting from your cell, you crook!
Most college towns such as Gainesville, Fl have tons of apartment complexes with high-speed internet access found in every room. Check out http://theplacetolive.com/ for an example.
I still can't see why anybody would want to run public servers out of their house. That's what hosting companies are for. Let somebody else fix the servers.
A great amenity would be the positioning of soda machines, stocked bi-weekly, at both ends of each floor. Caffeinated beverages preferred.
Apartment community features that I would want to see on the list...
1. divx server
2. quake server
3. unreal server
4. mp3 server
It would also make it so much nicer to see 1000mb/s on gnutella when I pull from my neighbor instead of the typical 15kb/s from the guy down road.
Bandwidth's not the most important thing in a geek-friendly apartment by a long shot. In many American cities, you can get a cable modem connection for $40-$50 a month, which is plenty of bandwidth. Having the apartment wired with cat5 is a plus, but it's not hard to do yourself and wireless 802.11b also works pretty well.
What you really need in a geek's apartment is lots of power. Well-placed outlets in every room are key, as is not having to worry about blowing a fuse if you have a whole bunch of equipment running at the same time. Pretty much anything else you can set up yourself if you need to, but if the wiring is lousy and the landlord's not interested in improving it then you're probably screwed.
Other sites you may consider include near Broome, with it's fabulous beaches, or Denmark, much colder and more crowded but with many lovely large trees, or perhaps somewhere along the scenic vehicle-destroying Gibb River Road.
(some Hamersely views included here, mostly from Transmission Hill (AKA Wireless Hill or Radio Hill depending on sobriety levels) at Paraburdoo, Western Australia, some Broome views in the earlier sessions).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
My boyfriend is going through the dorm withdrawal phase, and he's moving in with me. Both being geeks, we have come up with a decent plan to turn our apartment into geek heaven.
Current setup: I've lived in this apartment building for a while, so I've had time to settle in and get my own network going.. The only problem is, he's got his own network setup with a different configuration.
DSL connection from Verizon (640k/90k for $39.99/mth), firewall/gateway to handle multiple computers, 10/100 switch and one wireless hub.
The wiring in my building is scary. It's an old hotel from the 1800s that was transformed into efficiency apartments. I once tried to open a wall switch to put an X-10 unit in and promptly closed it back up and decided not to fry myself. There are only so many power outlets that are grounded, and yes, there are computers in one or two of those (thank god for Radio Shack). The walls are plaster, so all cabling has to go along the baseboards and duct taped to walls.
4 computers strains the power, we're waiting to see what 6 computers will do to it.
Although I recommend finding an apartment with better (read: newer) wiring, yuo can turn any place into a geek heaven... and with more money, you can buy faster DSL.. we've considered purchasing business class DSL (but not from Verizon)
Just what the stereotypical tech needs - less socializing with real people and more with the same kind of poeple you see at work . . .
Display some adaptability.
get a life instead ? ;)
Grab a nice girlfriend if you can and you'll see there are better things in life than machine rooms !
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
In about a month, I'm moving to a "wired" apartment complex in Cherry Hill, NJ (about 15 minutes from Philly)
The rent includes broadband Internet access. Each room in the apartment has a jack with a DSS, cable, and 3 or 4 RJ-45 jacks for network/phone. There is a patch panel in the front closet where everything ties in. See http://www.roselandmgt.com/ and look in the "Roselink" section for more info)
Here are some of the items that I would look for in the ideal apartment setting (tech or not)
Sound Dampening:
There's nothing like the rumble of Quake at high volume, but don't inflict it on me in the wee hours of the a.m. I would want to protect my neighbor from my own noise as much as I would protect myself from his. Abundant sound dampening would be a big plus.
Air Filtration:
With all of the different lifestyles (smokers, non-bathers, obscure candle lovers) I want to make sure that I only get the scents that I invite into my apartment. I currently have neighbors who smoke like chimneys, and it has seeped into every fiber of my carpeting. Then they installed a bunch of air ionizers, so now my apartment smells like a mix between an ashtray and a public pool.
Multiple Multi-Connector Outlets:
You can never have enough power/cable/telephone outlets.
No Exterior Stairs:
Either give every apartment ground floor entry, or provide an elevator. The stairs should be an emergency exit only. I've had too many drunk neighbors stumble home late at night.
Package Safe Deposit:
I hate getting home to find a note that the office is holding my package. I have to plan my day around the office hours so I can get my shipment of penguin reds. Not good. Give me a large safe deposit that I can give the FedEx/UPS guys access to.
Thick Window Coverings:
Most apartments come with your typical set of slat blinds. These are great until you try to watch a movie on your big screen at 5 pm and find the glare obscuring your view. The ideal apartment would have blinds capable of completely shutting out outside light sources.
Independent Hot Water Heater with Large Capacity:
Let me adjust my hot water to the temperature that I like, and make sure that I never run out. Same goes for the HVAC system.
And for the ideal techie apartment I would add
Electronics Closet:
An extra closet with a monster UPS/Line filter. Run all of the CAT-5, speaker, KVM, S-Video, etc. cables here. This is where I would keep all of my A/V equipment, big iron/Beowulf Rack, High Bandwidth uplink, and a router. This room would also need an independent temperature setting, as all of this equipment will be generating a lot of heat.
Pre-Routed CAT-5:
I don't want my apartment complex supplying my internet access, as I wouldn't put my faith in their capabilities. But if they would run CAT-5 throughout the apartment and leave the connections exposed next to the washer and dryer so I could hook up a router: fabulous.
Pre-Routed A/V wire:
Run speaker wire throughout the apartment. Run S-Video/Optical/and component outs throughout each room as well. Make sure the outlets are on multiple walls on each room so I have a choice of where to put my equipment, but also provide covers so the unused ones aren't exposed.
Remote Control Extenders:
Since all of my A/V equipment is in the closet, I'll need some RF/IR repeaters to get my remotes signal in there.
Good lord man! What the hell is wrong with someone who goes through two rolls of TP a day?
You've never been to prison, have you?
Sorry, it's been tried. I live in a complex that was built brand-new with built-in broadband connections to every unit (for an extra cost turned on, of course) but the company that provided it (and the service for a number of other similar complexes) went kablooey in the Spring of 2000 in the dot-com crash.
No I didn't get any warning from ReFlex Communications, although there were 3 days between when they filed and when they shut off the service.
Too bad, it was pretty sweet and a very good deal.
Umm OJ was never in prison, he might have been in a holding cell for a few days untill be made bail. But prison?
Our business in Madison, Wi does exacly that! we offer short term corporate housing with resort style services, including free broadband in every apartment, as well as internet appliances, computer room, etc.
Sig this.
One of the more obvious ones is the hideous green painted ex IBM building near the Harbour Bridge exit (city end). It has full cat 5 wiring and (if you want it) centralised Net - BUT as all city apartments you had better have a lot of cash around to be able to afford it ..
Jon - TheSpork
Make sure the "apartment of the future" has a Mt. Dew machine.
Have you ever been inside a "telco hotel"? They would need a lot of work to be human friendly. In the process, most of the infrastructure be in peril.
With the added bonus of a Wyoming address (posting from Montana!), the town of Greybull, Wyoming has, in addition to a bitchin' name, citywide ethernet with fattie bandwidth and cable TV included for ~60$US/mo. And you can rent an entire freakin' house for ~150$/mo. And it's in wyoming (This is a good thing)! On the downside, iff'n ya don't telecommute, I hope you enjoy yer job at the mine!
On site pizza and ATM.
I don't know if this is exactly the same thing, but my friend's apartment is basically a large network. When he took a job as a game programmer in San Diego and was searching for apts, one of them offered cable internet access as a drawing point. From what I understand, each apt is wired with a cat5 drop [not sure on number or placement] and the entire apt is on one large network [allowing for ease of sharing between neighbors I suppose, but security?]. I don't know about speeds or anything else really, but wired apartments do exist, at least in San Diego.
-bZj
.sig
In Springfiled Va. there is an apartment complex that has cat5 throughout all the apartments. When I was looking for a place that was one of the main reasons for checking it out. Unfortunately the cheapest one bedroom was $1500 a month and the person who showed me around knew nothing about it and couldn't answer any of my questions concerning it. Oh well, I went with the $700 mortgage payment and ran my own cabling in my house. Now if I could only get someone to donate an OC-3 line to my house...
Housing, Uncertainty, and Doubt?
I think i heard someware that a place here in dublin was doing it. Dont know where. Some company ordered too much bandwidth and offered it to an appartment block beside. they took it needless to say and the price of appartments doubled! Now a nice appartment in dublin is uasally anything from 100k Euro +, and these ware selling for about 300k Euro! Anyway, if i was to get a nice 21century appartment i would require backup power! Definate requirement. lots of bandwidth is also required!
Lotas T Smartman www.lotas-smartman.net
stop bashing me. im in a hotel right now, on teh damn network drop. yes, disney world in all its glory, but this is just so mcuh fun. just kidding its midnight and im bored.. ha ha
This is not really not what the article was about but I will share my story.
My wife and I were on the apartment hunt and the only thing that I absolutely required was DSL. Every apartment that I went to said that, "I don't know... not a techie... not sure". That was not good enough.
Found an apartment building that was completely brand-new and in-between Dallas and Fort Worth. When asked about DSL, I got "Yes".
That is all I want. A definite answer. I cannot begin to imagine if I moved somewhere and I then could not get broadband.
The problem is not getting service but rather is the apartment managers up to snuff on what services are offered on the complex.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Some amenities I would like would be a soda machine that had Bawls, Mt.Dew, Dr.Pepper, Jolt, Red Bull, and other natural/un-natural caffeine drinks in it.
It would be interesting to setup a filesharing service throughout the apartment. Probably gnutella or something could be set up to search the apartment complex before the whole Internet, thus if whatever you want to download has already been downloaded by someone else in the apartment building you could get it from them off the gigabit Ethernet instead of off some guy with an upload capped 128kbit Cable line....
It would have to have anonymity though, you wouldn't want your next door neighbor being able to find out exactly what sick fetishes are in your pr0n collection.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
The apartment has a shared kitchen/living room and four separate bedrooms (each bedroom has a full bath in it).
Rent's not terribly bad (from what I've heard from friends, and considering I live in the middle of Hick-NoWhere). It's $265/mo, you get a 12 month lease. Internet's only about $24 a month (about $10 more than I was paying for dial-up a few months back). And the cable tv's thrown in w/ the deal...
It's kind of a college-apartment place.
If you want to know more, it's www.theplacetolive.com
All your nightmares are belong to us!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Noone has mentioned a building sized UPS with a building sized backup generator. What good is a broadband connection when you don't have the juice to use it?
I rejoice that there are owls.
my apartment doesn't even have a computer in it.
And I like it that way.
It's a nice change of pace from working all day
in front of a computer.
I agree, sorry if my comment was mis-understood. The idea is to use a gigabit switch for apt-to-apt connections and a linux router for outbound traffic going to the ISP. I would not dream of using a PC as a gigabit switch, just think how many PCI slots you'd need for an apt complex!!
Also, I really don't think the IP's will be a problem, it really just depends on the ISP. For example, my ISP sells a high speed DSL package with 30 IPs. The apartment complex I live in has only 20 apts.
Neat. Sounds like the project is well in-hand, then.
In Town:
Northlake Pizza
Medusa (in Columbia City -- real Italian pizza!)
Portland:
Bridgeport Brewery (amazing pizza which floats off the plate).
Eastside:
Bwahahahaahaa! The Eastside is HELL! The only thing non-toxic to eat there is Chinese food!
(I actually think it's pretty funny. 200,000 people with money coming out of all nine holes, working like dogs, and there's nothing to eat but fast food, sandwiches, and teriyaki).
I don't know about any other people out there, but I prefer the "industrial" touch myself, and I must have non destructable spaces for my works (arc welders aren't good on carpets after all ;)) not to mention the fact I dislike carpet for anything hardware related, too easy to lose small parts in and find them the hard way (in your feet) But having a whole large setup of fiber or a bunch of cat5 is good. My prefrence leans towards large factories, not as easily converted for living in, but they've got some great use for machinery facilities if you aren't totally into computers, not to mention the fact they've got much better electrical service then a hotel myself, and if you're a real nut about it they've got 3 phase 480, but that's a mixed blessing when you get the bill! (I'm an electricity junkie mmmmmm, more power)
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
You are right - not prison but Orange Country Jail for all the days after the 'car chase' until the not-guilty verdict
There was no bail to post since he already ran
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
all u need is a good l0pht and yer set. Lofts are usually located in business districts, so access to business grade communication resources isn't difficult. Space is abundant, and usually a freight elevat0r for moving the big stuff. Not to mention that lofts are totally cool. All of you highly paid e-commerce developers can afford lofts.
Nope. I'm assuming the two rolls of TP a day are used after ones ass gets pounded by a 250lbs lifer?
Well, either that, or after ones lifter gets pounded by a 250lbs ass.
No offense but TANSTAAFL.
It irks me that people try to pass off something whose costs they've hidden (in rent, etc) as "free".
Like my apartment. The only utilities I pay for are electricity and telephone.
I don't pay for separate heat (but the HVAC is electric and hooked to my meter).
I don't pay for hot water (but the cost for the water is folded into my bill, and heated electrically).
I don't pay for gas (electric stove).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well, if the apartment you're looking at is modern enough to have Cat5 etc. in it, this shouldn't be a problem... but... one requirement for an apartment is good electricity. My roommate formerly lived in a ~100 year old house that is split up into apartments, and he'd have to make sure he didn't run much at once.. I mean, in the summer when the air conditioner is running, he'd have to shut off the computer to run like the air conditioner or dish washer, or he'd blow a fuse... the fuse-box was locked in the basement, so he'd have to call the landlord and have *them* replace the fuse.
Needless to say, this probably isn't often a problem, but it is if you get an old dive for an apartment 8-).
Here in Oklahoma City I live in an apartment complex that is Cat5 wired, has three network drops per apartment, and the entire complex is basically one big network. To the outside world I get about 120k/sec. (depending on the site) and within the complex (at least transferring between drops in my own apartment) I get around 300k/sec. In addition the cable and telephone services here are digital, and the really cool thing is that in the workout room we have NetPulse machines. Basically imagine a bicycle that has a monitor on the front of it from which you can watch TV, listen to music, or surf the internet. Pretty cool!
Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
An upstairs brothel that's open 24/7 and accepts payment via PayPal would certainly be a hit :-)
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
My apartment complex (72 apts) is currently considering settingup our own High Speed internet access system (in India, no less!)
The current plan is to do a Cat 5 ethernet network (10 MBps because its cheaper and the bottleneck is at the gateway anyway) for the Building.
And get a leased line to a Cisco 1600 series router.
Any body have a better suggestion? Is the Cisco router good enuf for 72 apartments (assuming one PC each, only 40 people have shown willingness to pay as yet though)
What capacity leased line do you reccomend for 40-50 people.
Are there any watch points security issues that we should be worried about?
TIA
-V
Here's a company that wires up an entire apartment through the phone system for you. CaseofCommand. I'm not sure what kind of connection they're using but I'm convinced its ADSL and not T1 like their website claims as I've had terrible experiences with them in the past.
Its really no big deal. There is no immediate advantage to this service other than being able to use a standard ethernet card and not having to purchase a cable modem or DSL router. As a techie, I would be running my own servers and would have no use for the server in the building. And I can't imagine liking my neighbors enough to make use of the 100 Mbit building-wide LAN. The chances of any of my friends living in the same building as me are pretty slim. Although I think the posibilities for video on demand are intriguing...
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I go through at least 1 double roll of TP a day. Sometimes two. I usually take a shit for about an hour (while reading the paper) and then wipe vigorously but that shit is nasty. I'm very paranoid about getting shit on my hands so I use huge wads of toilet paper for each swab. Then I shower afterwards and rinse my ass. I would not like prison.. hell, I don't even go camping because I need my shower with detachable shower head to fully clean my rectum. I'd go crazy without that smooth clean feeling of a clean ass.
I just moved into a new place. It's a beachfront property in Brooklyn NY and though it's not as hooked up as it should be considering its price its pretty good. My Apartment came pre-wired. For optimum online and RCN cable modem service as well as Verizon Avenue DSL (Verizon dept. specializing in building developments). The Apartment had two continuous strands of CAT 5. If you split it up properly you can have three rooms with CAT 5 drops and still have two phone lines. Since everything is pre-wired installations go through fairly smooth and fast. Both RCN and Verizon have fiber and copper running into the complex and from what I was told Verizon has their DSLAM right on the property. It's not too geek oriented but it's a very nice place to live. Their site doesn't have too much info though. In fact no one really knows what's wired in and who runs it. You sort of have to scavenger around for information once you move in.
Jim
WeFunk
There are a few places in Austin Tx that do this...
One was... COllege park, or something. It was sort of south of downtown, and everyone was on a DHCP scheme. Not sure about static/QOS/etc.. A friend lived there, and she frequently downloaded at around 120K per second.
I lived in teh Hunters run complex. They obtained their High speed thru www.bbnow.com a company that wires up a crapload of complexes around Tx. I paid around $800 a month (back in 1998) for a 2bedroom place that was right next door to IBM... (off of MOPAC). We had a shared T1, and outages were rare. I averaged around 100K per second downloads in Netscape. Sometimes the bandwidth went down when some bastard ran a Half Life server.
I think it was $80 per month extra for access, that included 2 static IP's.
Owell, none of it matters now. I now live in the ghetto in Zion, Ill, trying to barely survive off of minimum wage, and ramen noodles. At least I can afford my ATTBI cable modem. All this, after 5 solid years od Solaris admin experience. Fucking new economy my ass.
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
In toronto, right at the lakeshore on queensquay it seems all of the new condominiums being built claim to have acess up too 2000 times regular dsl
What we really need in a techie apartment is a caffiene tablet dispenser instead of a soda machine.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Most areas around large colleges have apartment complexes with such wiring...so far the ones I've seen though really aren't worth living in. The apartments themselves are overpriced, generally crappy, and you're very likely to end up with 3-4 rather noisy and inconsiderate neighbors. The "broadband" access they offer is usually a T1 or 3 for the complex...or in some cases complexes. The one I lived at had our bandwidth capped at 150 k/s (up and down) and during the day and peak hours our rates would drop to sub dialup rates (2 k/s and less)...
I live in a part of the city Örebro in Swden called Varberga. The apartments around here cost between $170 too $370 /mount and to all the apartments you can get 10Mb connection (with dynamic ip) for just $20/mounth...
And the fun part is that the ISP(Bredbandsbolaget or the Broadbandcompanie in Eng) is planning to use Varberga as a testarea for there upcoming 100Mb. Im telling you, this is the place to gather up all techies.. =)
"Love the life you live, Live the life you love!"
The building was designed in the mid 60's by Seifert for central London but planning permission was refused so it was dumped instead on the regency seafront of Brighton causing much upset to local conservationists.
Cable TV was introduced about five years ago and the supplier (NTL) has only just started to offer broadband across this. I think it's unfortunate that we cannot club together to buy one connection and share it amoung the 100 apartments.
Since I moved in there are cables running up and down the hall way carrying audio, video and ethernet and I have yet to find suitable ducting/trunking solutions to hide all this wire. I am surprised at this since I can't be the first to attempt cable retrofits without digging into the floors and walls, but even the recent askslashdot about home networks did not get close to this aspect.
"Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?" How about a way to get away from all this techie crap. The last thing on my mind when I get home from work is sitting infront of another crt.
Hey, I really got an appartment of that type. It is kind of a student flat and the people in the house have built up a network infrastructure (100Mbit) and we are connected to the world over the University like most of the other student dorms in our city.
:-)
PS: I feel good
In such a geek hovel, you need to make sure that you have adequate power, not just in terms of outlets but at the fuse box as well. In my old one room apartment, I'd blow a fuse if I tried microwaving some food while had both my 486 router machine and my desktop on: really convenient when I had 92% of a 600 meg ISO downloaded and got a sudden hankering for ramen.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
somehow I gathered that :)
there are these Studentappartements over here in Munich/Germany. It is sooo great, they are a bit out of the city and every room has their own Lan-Connection (I think the Uplink is a shared T1 as well). Whats more theres a cigarette machine in the lobby and a 24/7 Store in every building. In the basement there are different kinds of pubs, cafes and partyrooms, it is so great that i almost wish i would study something. People really live together in there, they learn, eat, hack, and party together...
;-)
Then again, I live in a small backyard building in munich and we got DSL a few months ago and wiring the old House was a blast and our small Lan is really a lot of fun ever since. Even better, a coworker of mine just wired his own house he was building. He also included a dedicated Serverroom...cost him a bit though
Have a fun xmas everyone...
There are a variety of apartments, townhouses and free-standing homes in the Dulles Tech Corridor.
.bomb era and anchored by more stable techs, like TRW, NEXTEL, and Oracle.
Caution: in Reston, stick with the north side of the tollroad, in Herndon the south side seems to be wired better.
You have your pick, from do-it-yourselfer hack apartments like mine at The Summit of Reston: washer and dryer in apt with outlet that is suitable for SGI Crimson, cable modem service, DSL available through everybody except AOL (no loss there), decent insulation and sound dampening between apartments, etc. There are also apartments with extensive internal networks, huge bandwidth, etc.
Part of the "charm" is there are very few old buildings around here, most of the construction has been leading into and during the
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century"
;-)
Two Words: Beer and Women
Merry X-Mas
S.t.e.v.e.
...to share spacious 20x30
U-Stor-It unit in Inglewood,
California. Includes fiber-
optic cable connection to
the Metaverse.
Contact:
hiroprotagonist@snowcrash.org
When I was hunting for an apartment here in Calgary, Alberta, one of the buildings was boasting about "In suite high speed internet". The company providing the service, Suite Systems was just a subsiduary of the management company. It looked very promising, so I started to do some research. There were claims of 100Mbit fibre to the building and unlimited usage. When I finally got a hold of someone in the know, (I called their tech support department), it turned out that you recieved an internal (not-routable) ip, and the link in your apartment was actually throttled WAY down. I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was equivalent to cable roughly. I decided not to rent the place, but rather just get DSL in another apartment.
Toronto's got a massive development near its
waterfront and right downtown. It's called
cityplace and it's being marketed as a high
tech mecca (and fitness facilities, etc.)
Looks like they want the crowd that in the
80's would have been called yuppies...
100Mb/s networking, fibre, blah blah blah.
The development is right beside our formerly beloved "world class" Skydome, and stretching west for about 1km. But they made the towers
right next to the stadium just short enough
so that you couldn't watch the game. Alas...
http://www.cityplace.ca
Check out MainSail Village - PricewaterHouseCoopers now defunct (thanks economy) international training facility's on site housing for MCS trainees turned luxury suite's hotel (or Apartment if you want) - "developed to a level of quality you would expect from a dynamic and sophisticated company such as PricewaterhouseCoopers."
You know it's hightech.. check it out!
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Most college focused apartments, especially here in FL, offer ethernet access standard to compete with the dorms. Most come with utilities, cable, etc included in a single monthly bill and have swimming pools etc to remind you what life away from a CRT (or LCD) is like. The apt ethernet setups are well supported, and have good bandwidth available at off peak times (I'm usually up coding at 3 or 4 in the morning, so I get lightning access).
I dedicate this post to the death of muslims. may all good muslims find allah, and may the terrorist ones find my boot in their tight, stanky butt!
Well as a techy my best advice for an apartment is got get a wireless switch. Hook it up to your Cable/DSL modem. And put wireless eathernet cards in your PC/Laptops. That is probly be the easiest so that way when you are apartment hunting you can look for things that can actually impove your quality of living. Including Location, Heating, AC, Size of rooms, A non leaking roof, well insolated. Dishwasher, Fridge, Stove. Bathroom. With a wireless and some broad band internet. You are all set to do all the cool stuff you normally want to do without having to find a plug.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm getting all this info from New Toronto Homes. There's also the builder's website CityPlace, but it requires Flash 5.
It's a 20-building complex called CityPlace, and is going to go at Spadina and Front, next to SkyDome, near the financial and theatre districts, and Harbourfront. They're calling it a "digital neighbourhood," and residents will be able to "order movies, access a "virtual concierge" and connect to the Internet at speeds up to 50 times faster than high-speed cable."
Telus (Canada's second largest phone company) is installing a CDN$30million fibre-optic network, which will provide Internet access, HDTV, and video-on-demand.
There will also be a theatre, health-club, elementary school, daycare, community centre and library.
Boardwalk Equities in Canada (www.bwalk.com) had a plan as little as a year ago to do that very thing. They had secured the only national telco license (in general telcos are geographically restricted with no real overlap) and had planned to wire all their buildings (25000+ suites in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario) with Cat5 and offer phone service (either VoIP or full digital phone service), digital cable (this included online storage of a full days worth of programming availale on request, local television from each area they were located, plus all the premium channels you now find in Canadian Cable packages) in addition to highspeed internet connection. Basically you would be getting a 100 megabit connection with a massively thick pipe from the building to the rest of the world. They also had plans for things like e-commerce (I originally set up an online grocer for them which would deliver to your suite.. a great model for an e-grocer since with a bit of planning you could make 10 or more deliveries to a single building) for their tennents. They had also planned (I'm not sure how) to have a library of console and PC games available on the system in such a way that you wouldn't have to own a console, just their "Suite Genie".
Oh yeah, and all these services would have appeared on one monthly bill.
There were plans to sell the service to other property management companies.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Board of Directors at Boardwalk got tired of Mark Kornak (the CIO at the time I was there) burning through money at an enormous rate and the project seems to be dead. Its really unfortunate since it would have been a the sort of thing eveyone would have liked to have, especially since it wasn't supposed to increase your rent (you would pay only for the services you used).
So close, yet so far.
Happy Holidays,
Adam
so in your mind a "professional" runs and hides from technology that isn't "secure"... nice...
being a professional isn't about saying something sucks... anyone can do that...
being a profresional means working with clients to solve security problems...
His point, you self-righteous boob, is that he (as the user) has NO control over the security of a wireless network in an apartment. Most apartments will get the system installed as cheaply as possible and security will probably be non-existent. As a user (what you would be in such an apartment building) you would not be able to change the network configuration.
Go ahead and mod me up. I dare you!
The place is full of gangs, etc for the ground work crew.
http://www.concordpacific.com/home.html
Toronto has a complex of high tech buildings near the lake.
living in a hotel isn't that bad. i lived in an extended stay hotel (with kitchenette -- more than what came with my current residence, a loft) for 3 months when i moved to LA. it was only $40 a month more than getting a month to month lease AND i got free toilet paper and coffee. it was weird though -- coming home to a made bed, the end of the toilet paper folded into a triangle, empty trash cans. and i had to hide my stash in my clothes which made my clothes smell funny.
i have thought about traveling a lot and living out of hotels and working from my laptop. i knew a guy who lived out of his car and programmed for 2 companies. for the occasional shower he snuk into hotel rooms when the cleaning crew did its thing.
fear is the mind killer
In the late 1960s, Toronto's Campus Co-op built a cooperative high-rise apartment building, called Rochdale (after the town in England where the co-op movement started). This building, which is located near the corner of Bloor and St George, was designed for cooperative living: groups of individuals could rent suites, which consisted of 2, 3, 4, or 5 bedrooms, and a common area. The residents elected a board that ran the building. The project was a catastrophe. It was the classic problem of socialism: property which belongs to everyone belongs to no one, so no one looked after it. Ultimately, the government of Ontario took over the building and converted it to an old-folks home. A residence like this might make sense if run by groups of techies with some money in their pockets, rather than by penniless students. Certainly, the idea of leasing bedroom suites rather than apartments makes sense for groups of friends or co-workers - assuming a landlord could find enough stable, extended groups to fill the building. And for groups of hackers (or other professionals), it would be a good living environment. But it probably is not viable economically.
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it's a small but big thing - all that clean power should be supplied through generous, properly grounded outlets.
When did I start using technology to get work done?
I want conduit.
I've been running the stuff in my house as I remodel rooms. This way I can pull anything wire-like in the future whereever I want it.
Conduit...
I CAT5'ed my house and wish I'd read this advice before I did it. Running conduit is a damn good way of not having to take the walls apart again if you change your mind about your network layout
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I need a room to put my computer in, where the sun doesnt obstruct the vision of my screen. I need somewhere to piss and shit and shower. I need a door with a mailbox long enough that a pizza will fit through it so I can pay for my pizza without the pizza man falling wiitness to my grotesque atrophying body.
oh yeah and room to fit some huge ass speakers to listen to KYUSS all the WHILE.
How about virtual reality room,...security system that can be monitored from your computer. When someone buzzes to enter the your building,.. you can let them in without getting up from your computer and also view them on your monitor. Maybe instead of buzzing the door open you can play a funny little customized sound. Soundproof walls so I can play games without headphones. How bout USB chords wired throughout the unit so that you can control household devices from sitting your ass at the computer. Set your alarm from the computer incase you forget, lock the dooor, turn on and off lights. A small keyboard and monitor beside the shitter. Thats all for now.
Yeah, you know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. I refer, of course, to IBM mainframes!
My corporate contact from Nokia lives in an apartment complex that used to be wired with a full T1 here in Santa Cruz, CA. They disconnected it a few months ago, however..
"Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
The apartment complex in which I live, in Bloomington, Indiana is trying to appeal to high tech folks and college students. As such, the whole place is wired. Individual apartments have up to five CAT5 outlets in various rooms and the complex runs on a fiber backbone. It's really very nice. Check it out.
At somewhat the opposite ends of the spectrum, friends of mine who lived in an apartment building Palo Alto a decade or so ago wired it for Ethernet (Thinwire, aka 10base2, aka Cheapernet.) They had a startup company with offices in one apartment and several of them living in various apartments in the building, so telecommuting was even more convenient. I think they had a T1 feeding the business at the beginning, and after the business moved out to a Real Apartment they shared some kind of fractional T connection among the interested tenants.
The first network wired house I looked at when househunting achieved its status in about the most minimal form possible - there were two adjacent rooms with 10base2 jacks on the wall connected by about 6 inches of cable
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, Big Social Experiments inspired by Karl Marx and his buddies have mostly failed. But that's true of all BSPs, right wing and left wing. That's what "experiment" means -- you do something new and different, and end up either with a useful success or an instructive failure. The real danger of social experiments is that they tend to be supported by zealots who won't ever admit to failure, and often get quite nasty with anybody who suggests their ideas have flaws. The example you're probably thinking of is Osama. But there are others almost as scary, and not a few of them are in places of power in this country.
And let's avoid glib statements about "property which belongs to everyone". Life isn't that simple. Yes, socialists and communalists are often naive about how their fellow humans behave. But so are libertarians and free-marketeers. Whenever I tell a libertarian I'm not ready to disband the local police force, I get precisely the same childish assertions about expecting the best from people that I get when I tell a commie that I'm not ready to dispense with private property.
If your Toronto cyber-commune "proves" that socialism is absurd, what does the failure of Enron do? The fact is that neither experiment proves anything, except that selfish people will behave selfishly, if nobody's watching.